On the Common 29/10/09

Another busy day on the common, I spoke to 25 people not including the commoners that came back from the day before. The young commoners liked having something different to and really wanted to show me what they liked about the place. Unfortunately this did end up in the Great Crab Massacre of Milton Common, when a group of 6 under 12’s brought back a bucket full of crabs to show me and couldn’t be bothered to take them back to the sea, so jumped on them instead. Humm, the seagulls were happy.

This event aside the youngsters came up with more drawings for the site and showed an interest in helping with the production of work for the site in the New Year. When I went for a walk later in the day there was a group of about 7 children between 4 – 10 years old crabbing on the beach without adults, bikes rested up on a bench.

I had some interesting talks with older commoners, particularly about the site pre-common, and the houseboats on the shoreline, which is now the new housing development. One lady described in my notes as orange jumper dog lady (she had about 5 or 6) was particularly interesting. I explained my intentions and she ranted at me how children didn’t know how to play anymore…. seemingly completely unaware that there were a group of boys on bikes riding past her, and at least 50% of the people I had spoken to that day were under 12. The activities that her children got up to on the park did sound like good fun though, building rafts on the lakes and blackberry fights.

I also had a good chat with Willie Goldfinch who was building the war memorial to the north of the common and he talked to me about his nickname, working 7 days a week building the memorial and his ‘soft place to land’, being a poet.